STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP

Ma Liberia Bo

Many see today's Liberia as a failed state caused by the 1989 – 2003 civil war. Was the period of 1989–2003 actually the main reason Liberia failed? Did the 1980 military-led coup mark the beginning of instability in Liberia? What was the level of illiteracy during post-independence and post 1989–2003 Liberia? It does not defy commonsense, literally, to deduce that:

The 1847–1980 rule of the educated few by marginalising the larger uneducated population;

The 1980 military-led bloody coup (by semi-literates and acclaimed by a larger uneducated segment) that toppled the 1847–1980 ruling clique, that the larger uneducated population had to tolerate; and

The 1989–2003 manipulation of a larger segment of the uneducated population (by a segment of the educated few) to engage in carnage against their own people

are only possible when a state consciously fails to create adequate access to education for its own people.

“Inadequate access to education is a recipe for state failure.” — Michael Flowers